Thomas Chambers

“ There was indeed provision for the regular assistance of the Lord Chamberlain by a Vice-Chamberlain, an officer who had existed at least as far back as the fourteenth century, and is probably indeed the 'subminister' of the thirteenth. [116] Elizabeth's fee lists provide for a Vice-Chamberlain at a fee of £66 13s. 4d. and a table at court. But the post was not always filled up. Sir Edward Rogers held it from 1558 to 1559, Sir Francis [42] Knollys from 1559 to 1570, Sir Christopher Hatton from 1577 to 1587, and Sir Thomas Heneage from 1589 to 1595. ”

“ Insidious because it undermines, order, while legislative murder and confiscation induce reaction.
If a legislative chamber would act as a court, the first necessity is to eliminate its legislative character. For example, the House of Lords in England has long discharged the duties of a tribunal of last resort for the empire, and with general approbation, but only because, when sitting as a court, the law lords sit alone. Politicians and political influences are excluded. Where political influences enter disaster follows. ”

“ Not so a lawyer nurtured under the American constitutional system, which breeds in the judge the conviction that he is superior to the legislator. His instinct, under adequate pressure, is always to overrule anything repugnant to him that a legitimate legislative assembly may have done. In this instance, had the case been one of first impression, nothing would have been easier than to have nullified the Sherman Act as an unreasonable exercise of the Police Power, as judges had been nullifying statutes of which they disapproved for a couple of generations previously ”

“ Then in 1901 with “Cardigan” and other books he gave expression in fiction to the spirit of the American Revolution. It has not been simply as an historical or a semi-historical novelist, however, that Mr. Chambers has made his widest appeal. In the foibles, extravagances, superficialities and eccentricities of contemporary American society, he has found his richest vein. It does not matter whether the background of a particular tale be New York, or Washington, or Palm Beach. The underlying social and ethical problems are of real importance. ”

“ They were removed by Cunningham from the Audit Office, and when returned to the Record Office were classed in error as papers subsidiary to the Revels Accounts, instead of to those of the Treasurer of the Chamber. But Law, More, 61, successfully vindicates their authenticity, and I may add that the dockets of Chamberlain's warrants for other years (Jahrbuch, xlvi. 94) refer to schedules now lost, and that a schedule of the plays of the King's men for 1638-9 was facsimiled from a private manuscript by G. R. Wright in Brit. Arch. Ass. ”

“ Another thing which Lambe and Kingston do not tell us, and which the register, if it can be trusted, does, is that the effective change introduced by the Star Chamber of that year was only one of degree and not of kind. It is true that an increasing number of books came, after one set-back, to be submitted to correctors; that the clerk begins to lay emphasis in his wording upon entrance rather than upon licence; that there are some hints that the direct responsibility of the wardens was for a kind of ‘allowance’ distinct from and supplementary to that of censorship. ”

“ It is probably only up to a point that they will prove amenable to democratic control.
The actual use made of the Chamber varied considerably [57] in different reigns. It flourished at the end of the reign of Edward II, and again during the first half of that of Edward III. Soon after the middle of the fourteenth century, it lost much of its political status, owing to the separation from it of the Secretaries, who now had their own clerks in the Signet Office, and on the financial side it was for long little more than a privy purse in strict subordination to the Exchequer. ”

“ Is it not better that I remain and labour among my people in the cause of liberty?
"I can do nothing while a royal Governor governs Virginia. But if the time ever comes when our Boston brothers 180 sound the call to arms, I can lead six hundred riflemen out of this forest, whose watchword will be, 'Liberty or Death!'"
He had grown pale while speaking; two bright scarlet patches flamed under his cheek-bones; he coughed painfully and rested his head on his hand.
"Go to your Cayugas," he said, catching his breath. "Tell them the truth, or as much of the truth as Sir William's wisdom permits. ”

“ When the Supreme Court thus undertook to determine the reasonableness of legislation it assumed, under a somewhat thin disguise, the position of an upper chamber, which, though it could not originate, could absolutely veto most statutes touching the use or protection of property, for the administration of modern American society now hinges on this doctrine of judicial dispensation under the Police Power. ”

“ John Lawyer, whatever his political complexion, welcomed me kindly and gave me dinner.
I asked news, and he gave an account that Brick House was now but a barracks full of Tories and Schoharie Indians, led by Sethen and Little David or Ogeyonda, a runner, who now took British money and wore scarlet paint.
"We in this valley know not what to do," said he, "nor dare, indeed, do aught save take protection from the stronger party, as it chances to be at the moment, and thank God we still wear our proper hair." ”

“ Chambers returns to a favorite setting of the earlier years, upper New York of the Colonial period.
On a basis of solid fact, it would seem impossible for one man to do all this work. Where does he ever find time to do it? The answer lies in the fact that Mr. Chambers keeps regular hours—office hours, almost—for his writing, all of which is done in long hand. At that he is not a rapid writer, frequent revision is essential, and a passion for the verification of details consumes much time. Yet the bulk and excellence of the accomplished performance remains an established fact ”

“ Experience has shown, in New York and elsewhere, that an election, even for a somewhat short term, does not bring the judge so immediately under popular control that decisions objectionable to the majority may not be made. Hence the recall. The degradation of the judicial function can, in theory at least, go no farther. Thus the state courts may be said already to be prostrate, or likely shortly to become prostrate. The United States courts alone remain, and, should there be a struggle between them and Congress, the result can hardly be doubted. ”

“ I suppose it to have been directed, not to the correctors, but to the wardens, and to have taken the form of a request not to enter any play of the Chamberlain’s men, otherwise entitled to licence or not, without satisfying themselves that the actors were assenting parties to the transaction. Common sense would certainly dictate compliance with such a request, coming from such a source. ”

“ Minorities and the rights of property are further protected by the existence of a Second Chamber, with far wider powers than the House of Lords possesses even in theory, and enjoying the popular support that enables it fearlessly to use its legal powers unchallenged. Unsettling legislation, ordinary or financial, even if within the powers of the Federal Congress, has thus to run the gauntlet of two equally powerful Chambers, before it passes into law. ”

“ Ever since Hamilton's time, it has been assumed as axiomatic, by conservative Americans, that courts whose function is to expound a written constitution can and do act as a "barrier to the encroachments and oppressions of the representative body." ”

“ On the other hand, failure to give res judicata effect to habeas judgments determining as in the present case specific factual issues, may seriously undermine the writ: a State would have no incentive fully to litigate a question in the habeas proceeding if it could always relitigate the question on retrial. Moreover, in the present case, the State offered no reason for its failure to adduce at the first proceeding evidence concededly available at that time. No policy is served-and overburdened judicial resources are wasted-by needless relitigation of issues already fairly decided. ”

“ Chambers draws his material for fiction. He writes two novels a year for a large public that eagerly devours them. Mr. Chambers’ life is a full and active one.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, on May 26, 1865, and in his youth he aspired to be a painter. ”

“ But if in the informed discretion of the court, neither the statute nor the rules are up to the task, the court may safely rely on its inherent power.
Like the Court of Appeals, we find no abuse of discretion in resorting to the inherent power in the circumstances of this case. It is true that the District Court could have employed Rule 11 to sanction Chambers for filing "false and frivolous pleadings," 124 F.R.D., at 138, and that some of the other conduct might have been reached through other rules. ”

“ Jay and Marshall, Story and Bradley, and many, many more, struggled, protested, and failed. Failed, as I believe, through no fault of their own, but because fortune had placed them in a position untenable for the judge. When plunged in the vortex of politics, courts must waver as do legislatures, and nothing is to me more painful than to watch the process of deterioration by which our judges lose the instinct which should warn them to shun legislation as a breach of trust, and to cleave to those general principles which permit of no exceptions. ”

“ He dipped his nose into his mug, pulled at his long pipe, and eyed me askance.
"What the devil's this between you and Dorothy?" he growled.
"Nothing, I trust now, sir," I answered, in a low voice.
"Oh! 'nothing, you trust now, sir!'" he mimicked, striving to turn a sour face. "Dammy, d' ye know that I meant her for Sir George Covert?" His broad face softened; he attempted to scowl, and failed utterly. "Thank God, the land's clear of these bandits of St. Leger, anyhow!" he snorted. "I'll work my mills and I'll scrape enough to pay my debts. ”

“ But, Michael, have a care to use no Delaware words, for that would render my Cayugas suspicious."
I promised eagerly, and we sat down together to go over the trail, mile by mile, computing the circles I should be 123 obliged to take to avoid the carrying-places where spies were most to be feared.
"Dunmore rides South in a week," said Sir William. "But he will not wait till he reaches Virginia before he sends out his emissaries to urge Cresap on. You must beat them, lad, and go afoot at that."
"I can go the faster," said I. "Horses are useless in the Pennsylvania bush until you reach Crown Gap. ”

“ If I were going to surrender at once, I might as well go off to church with you now.”
“Wenniston church!” he said promptly. “I'll order the Mercedes.”
She laughed, lazily settling herself more snugly by the fire. “Suppose it were our fire?” she smiled. “There would be a dog lying across that rug, and a comfortable Angora tabby dozing by the fender, and—you, cross-legged, at my feet, with that fascinating head of yours tipped back against my knees.”
The laughter in her voice died out, and he had risen, saying unsteadily: “Don't! I—I can't stand that sort of thing, you know.” ”

“ The First President and De Mesmes are now out of the way, and it will be much easier for us to obtain what we want in Parliament than if they were present, and if what is commanded in the Parliamentary decree is faithfully executed, we shall gain our point, and unite the Chambers for that great work of a general peace. If the Court still rejects our proposals, and those of the deputies who are for the Court refuse to follow our motion or to share in our fortune, we shall gain as much in another respect ”

“ The Supreme Court made a conscientious effort to adhere to the theory of Hamilton, that it should, in emergencies like this, use its judgment only, and not its will; that it should lay down a rule, not vote on the wisdom of a policy. So the judges decided that, from time immemorial, the fixing of prices in certain trades and occupations had been a legislative function, which they supposed might be classified as a branch of the Police Power, but they declared that with this expression of opinion their jurisdiction ended. ”

“ A slight colour showed over his cheek-bones.
"If I shoot the Burgomaster and the notary and the others in there, ought I to let you go—on your own representations?"
"I have said enough," repeated Guild.
"Oh! So you refuse to plead any particular exemption on account of your nationality?"
No answer.
"And you, by your silence, permit yourself to be implicated in the responsibility of your fellow-hostages?"
No reply.
"Why?—Mr. Guild. Is it, perhaps, after all because [pg 15] you are not an American in the strictest sense of that often misused term?" ”

“ In fine, whenever pressure has reached a given intensity, on one pretext or another, courts have enforced or dispensed with constitutional limitations with quite as much facility as have legislatures, and for the same reasons. The only difference has been that the pressure which has operated most directly upon courts has not always been the pressure which has swayed legislatures, though sometimes both influences have combined. ”

“ Their second son, John, is the subject of our biography. John Chambers was born on September 19, 1797 in Stewartstown, Tyrone county, Ireland.
There are four towns of this name in the United States, settled probably by Irishmen, and the original place in Ireland, in 1880, contained 931 souls.
[10]
William Chambers was a hot-headed, impulsive man of great physical vigor, a superb horseman, and a leader in athletic sports. In early manhood he was powerfully influenced in his political opinions and action by the ideas exploited in both the American and the French Revolutions. ”